Pakistani who spread terrorist material jailed

LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) A Pakistani man, who pleaded guilty to distributing terrorist propaganda and helping a terrorism suspect breach a control order, was today jailed for six years.

Abdul Rahman, 25, was sentenced at Manchester Crown Court to six years for dissemination of a terrorist publication and three years for aiding contravention of a control order, making him the first person to be convicted in Britain of such offences.

He was also sentenced to six years for possession of an article for a purpose connected with the commission or instigation of an act of terrorism, All the sentences are to run concurrently.

Rahman was arrested in January 2007, two-and-a-half years after arriving in the country from Pakistan on a student visa to do a biotechnology course at university which he quit within days.

He was arrested for helping an individual, who cannot be named, to breach a control order by paying for a flight ticket out of Britain to Lahore.

During a search of Rahman's home in Manchester, northern England, detectives found a package to be sent to Pakistan and a letter from Afghanistan glorifying terrorist acts.

The package contained combat knives, a mobile phone linked to the individual who had fled the country, another mobile phone and chargers.

The ''call to jihad'' letter had been sent by Aslam Awan who had shared a house with Rahman, and who asked him to disseminate it to ''brothers'' in Britain.

Awan is suspected of taking part in terrorist acts against coalition forces in Afghanistan since he fled the country in 2006.

He is now barred from returning to Britain.

Also found during the search were video clips of an expedition to the Lake District in snow where Rahman, Awan and a third man, Muhammed Murad Iqbal, are seen undertaking military-style training and making references to martyrdom.

Iqbal is also subject to an exclusion order preventing him entering the UK.